Ukraine points finger at Russia as it plans plane crash investigation

Ukraine has already accused Russia of shooting down the Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed near the Russian border, raising questions about whether it can conduct an objective investigation into the disaster.

“The plane was shot down, because the Russian air defense systems was affording protection to Russian mercenaries and terrorists in this area,” the Ukranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, according to ABC News. “Ukraine will present the evidence of Russian military involvement into the Boeing crash.”

Breaking news: MH17

The United States has not been asked to get the National Transportation Safety Board involved in the investigation, even though foreign countries often ask the U.S. agency for such help. And with the tensions between Ukraine and Russia in the wake of the Crimean invasion earlier this year, it’s not clear whether either country will want U.S. involvement.

That means it could be much harder in the immediate future to get clear, objective answers about who shot down the plane — and whether there will be any repercussions.

The New York Times reported that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called for an immediate investigation of the crash of the plane, which was en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam.

President Barack Obama has said the United States would do everything it could to help the investigation.

“The U.S. will offer any assistance it can to help determine what happened and why,” President Barack Obama said before a speech in Delaware this afternoon. Putin had alerted Obama to reports of the crash when the two spoke on the phone earlier in the day.

Malaysia’s prime minister offered similar sentiments.

“I am shocked by reports than an MH plane crashed. We are launching an immediate investigation,” Najim Razak wrote on Twitter.

The NTSB said it was still evaluating whether it would join an inquiry.

If evidence confirms that the plane was shot down, politics may make any standard investigation impossible. When the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in September 1983, killing all 269 people on board, the country refused to turn over the flight data recorders — a critical part of any investigation — to the International Civil Aviation Organization. The recorders were eventually released eight years after the collapse of the USSR.